Abraham, Rachel, Soren and Liam. Our life together in Smalltown, Idaho.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Soren Update: October 2012

Dear Soren,

It's been a while since I've done this in letter format. In fact, I'd kind of forgotten about the letter format until you started asking me to tell you stories about when you were a baby. Not gonna lie, my memories of the past several years have been obscured by thick clouds of exhaustion, so I've had to rely on my blog to help me remember some of your antics and quirks from years gone by. Reviewing the old posts reminded me of the letter format-- and I think you're about due for a letter.

Last week you requested that we have spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. You helped me look up recipes on the internet and you found a demo video for how to make "The World's Fastest Meatballs." You were very excited about this recipe and throughout the cooking process you kept asking, "Mom? Are these really the fastest meatballs in the world?" Then, when dinner was ready, you asked if you could take a meatball outside and roll it. Bemused, I told you that meatballs only rolled in the song-- that we didn't roll meatballs in real life. "But Mom!" you said. "I want to see how fast they are!"

This August you started kindergarten. It's been fabulous. You've loved it. You like your teacher and you like the kids in your class. You'll fall into the door after walking home from the bus stop and immediately start telling me about all the friends you "made up" at school that day. There's a silly boy who sits by you at school sometimes. There's a girl you meet at recess for games of chase. There's Savannah and Adrian and Tyler and Jonah. There's one kid you don't like because he's kind of rude. There's a sad boy who stands alone at recess. You tell me that you often invite him to play, and while he refuses, it warms my mama's heart to know that you care enough to try to help him feel included.

You've been so excited about everything you've been learning in kindergarten. You've learned about dinosaurs and germs and blindness and hexagons. You've reviewed your numbers and letters. You told me recently that now that you were in kindergarten you knew how to do pretty much everything. You've gained so much confidence from your time spent in school. I was anxious that the opposite would happen; I am overjoyed that you have blossomed instead.

You're so smart now you can even write your name in Bingo balls.

This year you ran in the 18th annual Tater Tot Trot. As a five year old, you had to run an entire lap around the high school track. You were too worried about missing your race to switch into the sweatpants I brought for you to wear, so I rolled up your khaki cargo pants and you dashed off, skinny legs flailing in all directions. The pants kept sliding down so you had to hike them up as you made your way all around the track. You were the second to last to finish the race but I was so proud. My little boy, running a whole quarter mile all by himself. So handsome. So sweet.

One day I came home from work and noticed that Liam's fingernails were painted blue. You told me that you had painted them for him. And his toenails. "I wanted Liam to be really handsome," you explained. You then told me that you had also sprayed him with some nice smelling spray and cut his hair. "I couldn't find the kid scissors but that's okay because I'm a big kid and I can use the big scissors," you added. Alarmed, I checked Liam's head. Sure enough, there was a patch of hair missing. "Abe?" I asked your father, "Did you realize that Soren cut Liam's hair today?" He looked up from his book. "Oh yeah?" he asked. "I didn't realize that. Huh!"

Last time I did an update on you I reported that you woke up one day and asked, "Why is everything so dumb?" Well, this go-around you asked the opposite question: "Why is everything so cool?"

Sometimes you are afraid at night. Often I will help you say a prayer that you will be comforted and know that you are safe. One night as I was tucking you in you asked, "Mommy, why does Jesus have to be a boy?" I answered, "Well, um, hon, that's just how he is. For the same reason that you're a boy. You're just a boy. And Jesus was just a boy." I thought for a minute and then asked, "Why do you ask, honey? Do you want Jesus to be a girl?" To which you fervently, and with tears in your eyes, replied, "It's just that I like mommies best!" There is something special about Mommies, isn't there? Sometimes I wish Jesus were a girl too.

You are reluctant to pray at family prayer time. In fact, one evening when we asked you to pray, you answered, "I fink that Heavenly Father died." However, at other times you are quite willing to tap into the power of prayer. For example, there was one day that you ran downstairs to tell Daddy about the army of ants that had wound its way into our kitchen. Daddy sighed, thanked you for telling him, and went back to what he was doing, planning to take care of it in a little while. But that wasn't what you had in mind, so you sat down on the stairs, out of Daddy's view, and prayed. "Dear Heavenwy Father, Thank you for this day. Please bless that the ants will go away." Daddy heard you and thought, "Oh, poor little guy. He's scared!" So he got up and took care of the situation. Later you told him, "Daddy, I asked Heavenly Father to get rid of the ants and he didn't-- but you did, so I think maybe that's how Heavenly Father answered my prayers."

There was another occasion when you forgot to get off at your bus stop and ended up being dropped off at a different place. You came home to an empty house and were terrified. You cried, you prayed, and pretty soon your Auntie Clee came and found you.

There was also another incident that involved constipation, screaming, and some loud and desperate pleas directed heavenward. I won't delve too deeply into that one here.

Sometimes you get bloody noses and drive me crazy with your inability to calm down, hold still, and press a wad of Kleenex against your nose. Instead you flop around in a panic, wiping your nose on anything you can grab-- the shower curtain, the toilet paper roll, a bath towel, my shirt. Holding anything against your nose is totally out of the question. I usually just have to put you in the bathtub until the bleeding stops.

As of late, you've been fascinated by electricity. Your favorite activity-- and your father's least favorite of your activities-- involves getting out all the power strips and extension cords you can find in our house and stringing them together. You love to do "magic tricks" that involve turning on the family room lamp without flipping the main light switch. You've also really, really wanted to make your own little oven. I helped you craft a solar oven using a cardboard box and aluminum foil, but it didn't work very well, which only served to reinforce your belief that a homemade oven had to be heated by flame. (I've been trying to redirect your creative energies....)

And if it's not electricity, it's something else. You've often got some sort of "experiment" or "invention" going on. One one day you informed your Auntie Clee that your table at home "is, wike, the messiest table in the world, 'cuz it has, wike, paint and cattail stuff on it." You added, wistfully, "I wish I could take my table for show 'n' tell."

You've also been obsessed with this a computer game called Seiklus. Briar downloaded for you a few weeks ago. You play it a lot-- and when you're not playing it, you're babbling on and on about it. I've been able to persuade you to do a whole heck of a lot of work around the house in the name of getting to play Seiklus for an hour or so. I've also had to listen to a lot of nonstop chattering about interest in all about secret rooms and giant fish and your girlfriend in the sky. We all have. Today Briar tried to escape your endless prattling by retreating into the bathroom. That didn't stop you at all. You just talked through the crack under the door.

Sure think you're sweet. Love you so.

Mommy

This is your very first day of Kindergarten! You picked out a backpack with a camelback. Look at your brother. He thinks you're so great.

I made soup and bread bowls for dinner one evening. You decided the bread bowl needed a little more personality.

2 comments:

Everything about this made me so, so happy. I remember a year ago or even more thinking Soren would really thrive in kindergarten... just a feeling I had. That it would organize his self-concept--something--I don't know.

But daddies are a necessary balance, too. I've told Paul many of your little tales and we had a conversation recently in which Paul, I think influenced by the story of Soren beautifying the house with permanent paint, musingly wondered how often you must come home to the boys, under Abe's care, having... taped each other to the furntiure, or some such hilarious-but-slightly-worrisome antic. EXACTLY like the hair-cutting. EXACTLY. It was so in the vein of Paul's speculations that I cracked up upon reading the real-life version til I was slightly dizzy in the head.

Curious what antics will blossom with my guy in charge... Will discover, one of these days.

One query: How can I so love a little guy I met only once, and at a time when he relished the taste of cardboard?